In August of last year, archaeologists continued their annual excavations at the Ukrainian town of Baturyn
Published in the bulletin Canadio-Byzantina, no. 31, University of Ottawa, January 2020, pp. 10-15.
Volodymyr Mezentsev (Toronto), Yurii Sytyi (Chernihiv), Yurii Kovalenko (Hlukhiv)
In August of last year, archaeologists continued their annual
excavations at the Ukrainian town of Baturyn, Chernihiv Oblast. The
Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) at the University of
Alberta, the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (PIMS) at the
University of Toronto, and the Ucrainica Research Institute in Toronto
sponsor this Canada-Ukraine project. The Ukrainian Studies Fund at
Harvard University also supported the archaeological and historical investigations of early modern Baturyn in 2017-19.
The 2019 archaeological expedition in Baturyn involved some 45
students and scholars from the universities of Chernihiv and Hlukhiv, as
well as the Institute of Archaeology at the National Academy of
Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv. It was headed by archaeologist Yurii Sytyi
of the Chernihiv College National University. Prof. Zenon Kohut, former
director of CIUS, is the founder of the Baturyn project and its academic
adviser. Dr. Volodymyr Mezentsev (CIUS) and Prof. Martin Dimnik (PIMS)
are engaged in this research and the publication of its results.
Archaeologists believe that Baturyn was founded as a border fortress
of the Chernihiv principality of Kyivan Rus’ in the 11th century and
razed by the Mongols in 1275. Under Polish rule over central Ukraine,
the Baturyn fortress was rebuilt and enlarged in the 1620-40s. It was an
important strategic outpost on the eastern frontier of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (fig. 1).
Researchers have established that the 17th-century town citadel was
protected by a moat, rampart, wall, towers, and gate made of
horizontally placed logs in keeping with the medieval Rus’-Ukraine
tradition of urban fortifications. It covered 1.3 hectares in area. In
2008, the citadel’s earthen and wooden defences, as well as several
brick and timber structures within its bailey, were reconstructed on the
basis of archaeological research of their remnants in 1996-2008 (figs.
2, 3). Prof. Antony Littlewood (University of Western Ontario) praised
highly the historical, architectural, and technical aspects of these
reconstructions. See the report on his visit to Baturyn in 2019 in this
issue.
One hypothesis has been proposed that local Cossacks modelled the wooden palanka
border forts of the Ottoman Empire for building the palisade outer
defences of the Baturyn stronghold in the 1630-40s. The authors of this
article, however, assert that Polish magnates and royal administrators,
who commissioned the construction of fortress, borrowed its design from
Poland or Lithuania. There, palisade fences were widely used as frontal
fortifications of medieval and early modern town suburbs, castles, and
monasteries. The Baturyn fortress had an area of 26.4 hectares and a
perimeter of approximately 1 km. In the 1670-80s, its wooden towers and
gates were reinforced by flanking earthen bulwarks. Researchers have
graphically recreated the hypothetical general view, plan, and defensive
structures of 17th-century Baturyn (fig. 1).
In 1648-54, as a result of a massive popular uprising, central
Ukraine was liberated from Polish domination and the Cossack state, or
Hetmanate, emerged in this region. From 1669 to 1708, Baturyn was its
administrative and military capital. The town achieved the height of its
urban development during the illustrious reign of Hetman Ivan Mazepa
(1687-1709). But in 1708, this Cossack ruler resisted militarily the
increasing absolutist power of Muscovy over central Ukraine. That year,
the Russian army totally destroyed Baturyn, the main military base of
Mazepa’s revolt. The dynamic Hetman Kyrylo Rozumovsky (1750-64) rebuilt
the town, restored its status as the capital of the fading Cossack
realm, and promoted its demographic, economic, and cultural revival
until his death in 1803. During the 19th and 20th centuries, Baturyn
declined into an insignificant rural settlement.
This past summer, the expedition renewed its archaeological and
architectural investigations of the remnants of Mazepa’s villa in the
Baturyn southern suburb of Honcharivka. In the late 1690s, the hetman
commissioned there his ambitious three-story masonry baroque palace, a
timber court church, and houses for guests, servants, and guards. The
palace was ransacked and burned by Muscovite troops in 1708.
Excavations of Mazepa’s manor have been conducted since 1995. Last
year, 19 m west of the site of his palace, archaeologists discovered
debris of a hitherto unknown spacious brick edifice from the late 17th
or early 18th century. It had an underground 2 m-wide vaulted tunnel
with 12 steps leading down to what was presumably a basement, which has
yet to be unearthed and identified. In 2019, this passageway was
excavated for 6 m in length. Its side walls have survived with a height
of 0.64-1.5 m and are 0.9-1 m thick. The lowest step of this tunnel is
situated over 4 m deep from the present ground surface. The brick
pavements of the floor and steps are in a fragmentary state of
preservation (fig. 4).
At the upper part of this stepped passage, a door aperture and arched
niches in the side walls were found. Unfortunately, the upper portions
of these walls, vaults, as well as the ruins of the building’s
superstructure, were dismantled for reusing of bricks in the 19th
century. Further excavations are needed to explore the remaining debris
of both the underground and aboveground levels of this intriguing
edifice to determine its dimensions, layout, and function within
Mazepa’s estate. Preliminary analysis suggests that similar brick
vaulted tunnels with steps leading down to the basement have been
preserved intact at the masonry mansion of Judge General Vasyl Kochubei
in Baturyn and the chancellery of the local Cossack regiment in
Chernihiv of the late 17th century.
In Pobozhivka, the northern suburb of Baturyn, the expedition
continued researching the remnants of the residence of Chancellor
General Pylyp Orlyk, personal secretary, chief adviser, and closest
associate of Mazepa. Orlyk’s wooden dwelling was burned during the
conflagration of Baturyn in 1708. In 2017-19, brick foundations of two
of its heating stoves were unearthed. Archaeologists found many
fragments of locally manufactured polychrome glazed ceramic and
terracotta tiles of high technical and artistic quality from their
revetments. These plaques are ornamented with elaborate floral and
heraldic relief motifs in the Ukrainian baroque style. Several of them
bear the family coats of arms of both Orlyk and Mazepa.
In 2018-19, researchers recreated two complete heraldic stove tiles
of roughly square shape with each side about 30 cm long. The computer
photo collage and graphic reconstructions of the burnt tile featuring
Orlyk’s arms (1707-08) was published in Canadio-Byzantina, No. 30, January 2019, p. 12, fig. 3.
In this issue, the authors present hypothetical computer
reconstructions of the fragmented burnt glazed ceramic stove tile with
Mazepa’s armorial bearings in relief. In the centre of its composition
is a massive light-green Polish baroque shield surrounded by decorative
garlands or leaves of darker green enamel. On this shield, a darkest
green anchor-like six-barred cross with a white crescent moon and a
six-pointed star on both sides are depicted, i.e., the main heraldic
symbols of Mazepa’s family arms referred as Kurch (Kurcz in
Polish). Hung around the crossbar, between the crescent and the star,
is a white ribbon with the Order of St. Andrew. The hetman received this
award in 1700. The shield is surmounted by a medieval helmet crested
with a princely crown (fig. 5).
Around the shield are relief images of symmetrically placed stylized
Cossack standards with horsetails, banners, hetmans’ large globular
maces, flanged maces, military trumpets, spears, partisans (pole arms),
flags, cannons, ramrods, muskets, sabres, oval and figured shields, a
baroque suit of armour and helmet, all glazed green and set against a
white background. Only the cannonballs, gunpowder barrel, and two
Cossack kettle-drums at the bottom of this composition are situated
asymmetrically.
Representations of various weapons, munitions, and Cossack or hetman
insignias of power on the recreated tile resemble those found in many
engravings and silver-gilt icon covers (riza or oklad
of the Byzantine tradition) featuring the armorial bearings of Mazepa,
which were created in Kyiv and Chernihiv during his reign. Probably at
Orlyk’s behest, a professional drawer from the Kyiv-Chernihiv art school
prepared the original graphic designs for his own and Mazepa’s arms. He
may have modelled some distinguished earlier versions of the hetman’s
heraldic emblem. On the base of this graphic original, Baturyn
tile-makers carved the wooden moulds for fashioning the clay tiles.
The image of a princely crown surmounting the helmet on Mazepa’s coat
of arms deserves special attention (fig. 5). Similarly shaped crowns
are depicted on many early modern armorial bearings of princes of
Ukraine and Western countries. The authors have suggested that Orlyk
commissioned the heraldic emblem of the hetman with this specific crown
to honour him as Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Mazepa was awarded
this title on 1 September 1707 for services rendered to the Holy League.
This allows us to date the reconstructed stove tile with the hetman’s
arms, as well as the finishing of Orlyk’s home, from that time to the
fall of Baturyn on 2 November 1708.
This particular type of crown does not appear in other
representations of Mazepa’s heraldic emblem from his era, which have
survived to the present. Hence, the recreated design of the hetman’s
armorial bearings that adorned Orlyk’s residence in Baturyn and dates to
1707-08 is unique and chronologically one of the latest known to us.
The combination there of Mazepa’s coat of arms together with images
of weapons, accoutrements, and hetman attributes of power is also
unique. Other ceramic heraldic stove tiles manufactured in the
Hetmanate, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Muscovy lack this
armature. It was likely an innovation of Orlyk to introduce such
military motif into Mazepa’s heraldic composition on some stove tiles at
his home. But the existence of these stoves was too brief. It would
appear that the ravaging of Baturyn as well as Orlyk’s residence in 1708
put an end to the continued use and spread of his innovation in the
ceramic tile decoration of early modern Ukraine and its neighbours.
The expedition investigated further the remnants of the
administrative complex commissioned by Rozumovsky in 1750-64 on the site
of Kochubei’s former court. These government offices of the Cossack
polity were demolished in the 19th century. Debris from two of them was
partially uncovered in 2017-19. An example of such state buildings from
Rozumovsky’s era is the extant masonry two-story chancellery of the Kyiv
Cossack regiment in the town of Kozelets, Chernihiv Oblast, which was
constructed and embellished in the Ukrainian baroque style with rococo
elements in 1756-65.
This past summer, in the park of Kochubei’s estate, archaeologists
resumed excavating the brick foundation of the south-western structure
of this complex. It had the dimension of 12 m by 10 m, one floor, timber
walls, a kitchen, a dining room, and at least two heating stoves. One
was faced with costly ceramic tiles adorned by Delft blue and white
glazing and featured ornate plant, anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and
architectural designs in the late baroque Dutch style. Rozumovsky could
import them from the Netherlands. Photos of two fragments of these tiles
discovered on site in 2018 were published in Canadio-Byzantina, No. 30, 2019, p. 13, figs. 4,a,b.
Another stove was apparently revetted with cheaper flat ceramic
plaques glazed brown, green, light beige, yellow, and white. Presented
here is the photo of a shard covered with
this
polychrome enamel depicting seemingly the folds of a garment or drapery
on the right side. It was found among the structure’s remnants last
year. Several analogous stove tiles bearing flower ornaments, human
images, and landscapes executed in a similar naїve manner were unearthed
at Kochubei’s court and the citadel in previous years. Their painters
adapted some artistic motifs of Dutch painted earthenware and
reinterpreted them using multicoloured glazing techniques and traditions
of Ukrainian folk art. Such tiles were possibly fashioned and decorated
at the local manufactory of architectural majolica that Rozumovsky
founded in Baturyn in 1750. During the 18th century, comparable replicas
of popular and reputable Dutch glazed ceramic stove tiles were also
produced in Kyiv, Chernihiv and Poltava provinces, and Galicia, Ukraine.
While excavating the Baturyn outskirts, archaeologists also found a
broken gilt bronze pendant with an oval semi-precious gem from a
necklace set of an elite Cossack woman, a lily-shaped bronze belt clasp
from a horse harness, a copper button, three copper Russian coins of
small denomination, two broken iron locks and a key, various iron
household implements, and three fragments of ceramic Cossack tobacco
pipes, all dating to the 17th and 18th centuries.
To summarize, in 2019, archaeologists closely examined the building
history of the early modern Baturyn fortifications and identified their
Ukrainian and Polish designs. They graphically recreated some defensive
structures and the general view of the hetman capital before its
destruction in 1708. Remnants of the heretofore unknown masonry edifice
and many informative decorative and heraldic stove tiles of the Mazepa
era were discovered. The importance of these archaeological finds and
the computer graphic reconstructions of the unique versions of Mazepa’s
and Orlyk’s ceramic coat of arms for the study of heraldry and applied
arts of Cossack Ukraine cannot be overstated. Next summer, excavations
at Baturyn will continue.
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